ATF Death Watch 69: Be Vewwwy Quiet!

That sound you hear? Listen…now that the wagon wheels have stopped creaking from the ATF circling the wagons, and the dust has settled from the lateral arabesques from all the deck chair shuffling going on over in personnel, the sound you hear is the noose tightening around the necks of the ATF, the Dept. of Justice, and the Obama Administration. Or to put it another way, this is one Ship of State that’s leaking from the top down. Allow me to explain…

From our late-to-the-party-but-nevertheless-welcome-friends at FoxNews point out today on their site, the “evidence suggests a coverup” over at the ATF Coral. Okay, but wait…suggests a coverup? SUGGESTS a coverup? That’s like saying “the last time it rained like this, Noah built a boat.” Far as I can tell, Job #1 over at the House o’ Jack-booted Thugs is covering up, all the time, every time. Hell, they must be giving Bed Bath and Beyond a run for their money on bed sheets, they’ve got so much covering up going on. I’ve seen devout Muslim women in burkas showing more skin than the ATF is showing more, vis-à-vis “openness.” Sheesh.

From the FoxNews lede:

Just hours after the death of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, federal officials tried to cover up evidence that the gun that killed Terry was one the government intentionally helped sell to the Mexican cartels in a weapons trafficking program known as Operation Fast and Furious.

The revelation comes just days after a huge shake-up of government officials who oversaw the failed anti-gun trafficking program and Congress renewed its demand for more answers.

Oh, and did we mention the (admitted) count of Fast n’ Furious guns used in other crimes here Stateside has gone from 11 up to 21? Geez, in Mexico, I suspect when the cartels are filling out job apps, they list “ATF” under “preferred armory.”

“The Justice Department has been less than forthcoming since day one, so the revisions here are hardly surprising, and the numbers will likely rise until the more than 1,000 guns that were allowed to fall into the hands of bad guys are recovered — most likely years down the road,” Grassley said in a statement released Thursday.

And now, for the “Understatement of the Year Award,” may I have the envelope please.

But my favorite pull quote from Grassley has got to be this one:

“What we’re still waiting for are the answers to the other questions the Attorney General failed to answer per our agreement. The cooperation of the Attorney General and his staff is needed if we’re ever going to get to the bottom of this disastrous policy and help the ATF and the department move forward.”

Let’s try that one again, this time, closed-captioned for the thinking-impaired:

“What we’re still waiting for are the answers to the other questions the Attorney General failed to answer per our agreement.

[Look, Holder, you dumb schmuck – play games all you want, but we’re gonna see your ass in jail. Stalling is only gonna make it worse. And tell your boss we’ve got our eyes on HIM, too.]

The cooperation of the Attorney General and his staff is needed if we’re ever going to get to the bottom of this disastrous policy…

[Oh, we’ll get there, cooperation or not. Too many stool pigeons squealing about this one now. Too many people playing CYA to keep the lid on. And too many media sharks finally got their noses out of Obama’s ass to smell the blood in the water. Finally.]

…and help the ATF and the department move forward.”

[“Move forward” as into an early grave. You guys are toast. Don’t make any long-range plans, Holder, for you and your boyz are gonna be taking a little trip to Club Fed. How’s the weather in Cuba this time of year, by the way?]

Not to be left behind, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) sent a little love note to the newly-minted U.S. Attorney for AZ, Anne Scheel. In it, he requests “interviews, emails, memos and even hand-written notes from members of the U.S. attorney’s office that played key roles in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) program. Both Issa and Grassley wanna have a little sit-down chin wag with Assistant U.S. Attorneys Emory Hurley and Michael Morrissey, as well as Patrick Cunningham, chief of the office’s Criminal Division.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Hurley must be feeling the heat. Issa and Grassley wanna know how cum Hurley knew almost immediately that the guns found at the U.S. Border Patrol Agent Terry’s murder scene were part of the Fast n’ Furious cock-up, and why he tried to prevent the connection from being disclosed. FoxNews unearthed this little nugget o’ gold:

In an internal email the day after the murder, Hurley, and then-U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke, decided not to disclose the connection, saying ” … this way we do not divulge our current case (Fast and Furious) or the Border Patrol shooting case.”

Also nominated in the “Understatement of the Year Award” category:

“The level of involvement of the United States Attorney’s Office … in the genesis and implementation of this case is striking,” wrote Issa and Grassley.

Some of the ATF agents who have come forward in the inquiry have also implicated Hurley in other interesting ways, namely that they were under the impression that they needed explicit permission from Hurley himself, in order to do their jobs, especially for things like capturing the F&F weapons as well as the bad guys. Yeah. THAT’S not a problem. Much.

All in all, I’d say that this ATF mess is looking more and more like Holder better call in the EPA. The containment’s failing, leaks are mounting, and the toxic waste is spreading from the ATF across the entire Department of Justice, and leaching into the State and Homeland Security departments. On second thought, forget about Elmer Fudd. They’re gonna need the guys in the bunny suits from Monsters Inc. This mess is too big for any one character.

So what exactly was the point of this post? If anything is going to bring this administration down its the economy. Everyone thought sending arms to the Contras was going to bring Reagan down – but there is always a fall guy, and it aint the top dude. As I recall the Justice Department was heavily involved in that little episode as well.

I used to provide a link to Freeway Ricky Ross’s wiki page whenever our fearless leader got his hopes up that this was going anywhere, though perhaps Danilo Blandon’s would be more appropriate. In any event, I will shocked if anyone who is actually responsible (as opposed to fall guys) faces any consequences.

So who peed in YOUR cornflakes? To paraphrase Rush, “you people have such short memories.” Remember Nixon? He had an unpopular war, runaway inflation, and quite a few other problems (lingering civil unrest, protests, etc.). Yet because the Dems ran a far-Left wingnut against him in a campaign incompetent enough to remind me of, oh, McCain’s, Nixon won in a landslide. Watergate, if you’ll recall, happened well before the election. It didn’t gain traction until AFTER the re-election. Yet it brought him down, along with his henchmen, and in the process, gave us the last 35 years or so of hatred from the Left for all things Conservative. (Ironic, as Nixon was anything BUT Conservative. In fact, you can may a pretty compelling argument that he was one of our most Liberal Presidents.)

I dont dispute that Obama’s reelection chances look pretty bleak. But stranger things have happened. Especially when you have a bunch of street fighters like the Chicago Way boys livin’ large and in charge. BUT…should Obama, by some miracle, GOP implosion, or October Surprise find some way to cling to power, (Hell, based on his recent shredding of the Constitution, he might just as well declare martial law and be done with it), Fast and Furious may yet prove to be his undoing.

So, I’m curious. I write only about quarter to a third of the ATF Death Watch series. Are you a Liberal who’s tired of hearing about the ObamaNation’s screw-ups, or is this more personal for you? You know, just about everyone other than RF who writes for TTAG either started writing here or at TTAC as a volunteer. You’ve got something on your mind, or you think you can do better, we invite you to write it down, send it in, and see it published. I, for one, would LOVE to see what you’d come up with. And I have my Strunk & White, Funk & Wagnalls and red editing pen all ready for you. Heh.

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